


Interpersonal Peace Negotiations

by d2fmeasurement



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 10:51:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3975352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d2fmeasurement/pseuds/d2fmeasurement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Professor Cligoris finally asks out the cute janitor he's been eyeing. Takes place during "Geography of Global Conflicts."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interpersonal Peace Negotiations

Lapari jumped when he saw there was a person in the classroom he’d walked into, hunched over the desk and scribbling excitedly. Honestly, the possibility that Greendale was haunted seemed much, much more likely than any of these professors being dedicated enough to put in long extra hours.

“I’m sorry. People usually aren’t in here this late…” he said.

The Professor looked up at him. “Oh, I have one night to come up with a system of rules for a Model UN competition between two completely separate Model UNs,” he said with a grin. 

“I feel like I must’ve heard you wrong because you look happy,” Lapari said. 

“Anyway, I might be a while. You can skip cleaning this classroom tonight if you want. There’s not really any mess…”

“Do you want me to wash that graffiti off the blackboard?” he asked, pointing to where the name Professor Cligoris was written.

“Oh, that’s just my actual name,” he said. “Are you the one who’s been washing it off every night?”

“Yeah, I thought some dedicated prankster was making fun of you,” Lapari said.

“Nope.”

“Do you have like a first name you could use…” 

“Yeah, I’m Tim,” he said. He put out a hand and said, “Nice to meet you.” 

Lapari shook his hand. Tim smiled, looking over him a little. He’d seen Lapari around and always thought he was cute but had never been brave enough to talk to him before. But, now with the adrenaline of planning out a Model UN competition running through him, he found himself blurting out, “Do you maybe want to come to this Model UN thing tomorrow? It’s going to be really fun.”

Lapari was 100% sure that was not true, but from the way Tim was smiling at him he was pretty sure he meant this as flirtation and it was pretty hard for him to meet other men who like men. There was the Dean, but fortunately Lapari was still far from being desperate enough for that to seem like a viable romantic option. 

“Yeah, sure,” he said with a little smile.

 

Lapari watched as the new security guard dragged Britta away. Yeah, this felt about right for a Greendale event. 

He walked up to Tim, who was still beaming with excitement over the whole thing. “Transdimensional portals really do it for you, huh?” he asked.

“Transdimensional worldpeace,” Tim said. “Worldspeace. Can you imagine?”

“Nope,” Lapari said. “So, I heard someone got paint all over the hallway. I think I should get out of here before someone convinces me the overtime would be worth staying in this place. Do you maybe...wanna leave together? Grab a drink.”

Tim grinned and nodded.

 

“To transdimensional worldpeace,” Lapari said as he held up his beer. Tim grinned and clinked his beer against Lapari’s. “So...I want to ask you something...I feel like it might come out insulting…”

“It’s a German name,” Tim said immediately.

“Oh, no, not that,” Lapari said. “I was just wondering...what caused you to end up a professor at Greendale? I mean, I’m a janitor at Greendale so I have no room to judge, but you seem, you know, pretty smart and ambitious…”

“Oh, thank you,” Tim said. “I mean, yeah, I actually went to grad school at Vassar…”

“No, I don’t believe that,” Lapari said. “No one who works at Greendale went to a college anyone has heard of.”

Tim laughed. “Um...while I was there, my boyfriend at the time convinced me it would be a great idea to make extra money writing undergrad’s papers for them. I got caught and it turns out there are not very many places that will let you teach when you got caught helping students cheat.”

“Wow,” Lapari said. “That sucks.”

Tim nodded a little and sipped his beer. “What about you?” he asked.

“You mean what horrible mistakes did I make to end up where I’m at in life?”

Tim laughed and said, “Or just, you know...what’s your story. Tell me about yourself.”

“Okay, um, well, I was born in Pakistan,” he said.

“Oh my God, I was Pakistan!” Tim said excitedly. Lapari furrowed his eyebrows, trying to figure out what that means. “In Model UN. For all four years of high school, I was Pakistan.” 

“Oh, so you totally get it,” Lapari joked.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s basically like we grew up next door to each other,” Tim joked back.

“Anyway, I came to the U.S. and tried to be…” He looked down at the floor and said, “Oh my God. I don’t even want to say.”

“It’s okay. You can tell me.”

“I was trying to be a comedian,” Lapari said, wrinkling up his face with shame. “I know that’s a very impractical pipe dream.”

“It’s okay,” Tim said. “I mean, what’s my skillset? Knowing a lot about political science? What can you do with that?”

“Like, be President, right? Or Secretary of State or…let’s get more beers,” Lapari said.

“Great idea. I’ll get this round,” Tim said. 

“Anyway,” Lapari said as he opened his second beer, “It turns out that living in New York costs all the money, so then I was just out of money and so I looked up the cheapest places to live in the U.S., moved here, got the first job that would hire me as a temporary thing and now it’s been…” He stopped to think about it, “Eight years.” He gulped down half of his beer.

Tim looked at him sympathetically. “For my first few years at Greendale, I was super, super depressed about where I was in life,” he said.

“And then what? You just embraced being dead inside?”

Tim laughed. “No, I just kind of thought to myself one day...you know, what is it that I don’t like about my life? What I put on a resume? Shouldn’t that be a tiny, tiny part of the universe? You know what I mean? And then there’s so many things that make me happy, that I kind of think of as little things...but, there’s no reason those things have to be smaller than which college name goes on my resume, you know?” 

Lapari smiled a little. He tucked some of Tim’s hair behind his ear and smiled up at him. “I could definitely use more of your attitude in my life,” he said. “And also just more of you…”

Tim grinned down at him and shyly asked, “Do you maybe want to come back to my place tonight?”

“Can I ask you something?” Lapari asked. He quickly added, “I mean, first off, yes definitely. How you answer is not going to change the fact that I’m coming back to your place tonight.”

Tim grinned and said, “That’s good. What is it?”

“Do I have any chance at all of being the highlight of your day?” he asked. “I mean, after you saw a Model UN attempt transdimensional peace…”

Tim laughed and said, “Well, not many people could compete with that.” He looked down at him and lightly kissed him. Lapari eagerly kissed back. Tim pulled away and said, “But, I think you could.”


End file.
